


Phantom

by Morpheus626



Category: Queen (Band)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-29
Updated: 2020-08-29
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:20:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 9,880
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26183323
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Morpheus626/pseuds/Morpheus626
Summary: Combined two prompts here: Ghosts, and Occult, from my DL server prompt bingo card!Set in 1974, in an AU in which the album Sheer Heart Attack was recorded A. in one place, B. the place was haunted, and C. there’s a mystery for the lads to solve in order to quiet the haunting and allow for them to get any work done.tw for mentions of death, violence, bones/disinterment of a body, general haunted house things/haunted objects, and descriptions of occultish activities.
Comments: 3
Kudos: 11
Collections: Dork Lovers Server Challenges





	1. 1

**Author's Note:**

> This was supposed to be a one shot, and these chapters are all going to be quite short as a result. This piece is in that awkward space of being short chapters, but also if it was posted all as one piece, even with a read more on Tumblr, it would be too long. 
> 
> So, small chapters seemed better, and I wanted to keep that form consistent and have it as chapters here as well!

“Say it one more time,” Roger said. “And I will tell you again, it is the stupidest thing you’ve ever said to me, and bear in mind how many past stupid things it beats out-” 

“There is a couch,” Brian said slowly. “Floating in midair. With our bandmate on it! If this place isn’t haunted, then please tell me what we should call it?!” 

Roger rolled his eyes. “You know, we could very well all be laying in our rooms, half-dead from a gas leak right now, imagining all of this.” 

Brian nodded. “Okay, right, but don’t you find this would be rather elaborate, for a dying hallucination?” 

“I’ve never died of a gas leak before, so I can’t reliably say,” Roger replied.

“Of all the things to be stubborn about,” John tsked. “And right now, Roger?” 

“I’m only trying to be rational!” Roger said. “Until now, you’ve all been the same; I don’t know what this is-” 

“Can you please bicker later,” Freddie screeched from atop the still-floating couch. “And get me the fuck down?! Or is that too much to ask?” 

“We are trying,” Brian said desperately. “I suppose this is what comes of renting a too-big home with vaulted ceilings...” 

“Yes, that’s clearly the problem,” Freddie spat. “Not the fucking ghost holding me aloft near said _vaulted ceiling_!” 

“Don’t yell; I’m trying!” Brian shouted up to him. “I’ll get a broom, maybe.” 

“Am I cat stuck on the fucking drapes?!” Freddie was aghast. “John, Roger, help him. Please, for my sake.” 

“Could probably catch you if you jump,” John offered. 

Freddie stared down at him. “John, darling...” 

“Yes?” 

“I love you,” Freddie said slowly, carefully. “So I’m going to nicely ask you to please think of a different idea.” 

John nodded. “Oh! We get all the mattresses in the house, pile them underneath the couch, and then you jump.” 

Freddie turned, and laid back on the couch. “So this is the rest of my life now. I didn’t think it would go this way, and I’ve had lots of ideas as to how it might go. But I didn’t envision living on a floating couch until the end of my days, never that. I wonder how long I’ll survive, without food, water, because if you can’t get me down, then surely you can’t get anything up to me. I hope the next album will be a memorial one, for me, stuck on this fucking couch. You could get someone to draw the scene, even, for the album art...” 

“Are you done?” Brian asked. 

“No, I’m fucking not,” Freddie shouted down. “I will never be done, because you’re leaving me to die on a floating couch in a haunted house!” 

“Would be done once you die,” John remarked.

“Oh no,” Freddie said. “I would not be, because I will haunt all of you, until I can take you out the same way. You will never rest easy on a couch again!” 

“Oh stop it,” Roger scoffed. “We’ll get you down. Could use this, if you all insist so badly that this is real, and a haunting.” 

He stomped upstairs, then back down, with a ramshackle-looking Ouija board in his hand. 

“Where the fuck did you get that?” Brian asked.

“I didn’t get it anywhere,” Roger replied. “It was in my room, in this little space in the back of the closet, with a little door...” 

Everyone was quiet as the realization dawned on Roger’s face.

“...So I think I might owe you an apology, Fred,” Roger said sheepishly, his face pale. 

“Has anyone else moved anything else they probably shouldn’t have, in this house?” Freddie asked from his perch. 

“I may,” Brian muttered. “Have found an old book, in my room. I just looked at it a bit though, I didn’t read anything out loud from it at least.” 

John rolled his eyes. “If this is about the ring I found-” 

“You’re wearing it, for fuck’s sake,” Brian scolded. “And it looks haunted! Really, Freddie, if you could see it on him, you’d agree with me. If I was a ghost, I would haunt it.” 

“I just wanted a nap,” Freddie sighed. “On this comfortable couch. Finished some lyrics, thought, I deserve a treat. A nap would be lovely. I should have known better. From the second we got in here, something felt off. Why not this, you know?” 

“Being a bit dramatic now, aren’t we?” Brian asked. 

“I’m sorry, I thought I was the one trapped on the ghost couch!” Freddie called down. “I think, of any day in my life, now is a time when I would be allowed to be dramatic!” 

“We’ll figure this out,” Roger said. “Just to ask...have we considered a ladder?” 

“I don’t think we have one tall enough,” Brian said. 

“But there is a ladder?” 

“Near the back shed, yeah,” John replied. 

“Why not have you,” Roger said, gesturing to Brian. “Hold the ladder up as high as you can, with us as support, and Freddie can climb down. Then we can figure out how to fix the rest of this so we can finish recording.” 

Brian blinked. “I’m sorry? We’re going, once we get Freddie down.”

“Actually,” John interjected. “Was really quite expensive, to rent this place. And we’ve got it for the rest of the month...” 

Brian’s mouth hung open. “You all want to stay here?” 

“Aside from this,” Freddie said. “It’s a beautiful old place. Just mildly haunted.” 

“Where else would we go?” Roger asked. “We don’t have the money to go elsewhere. The record still needs finishing. I’m sure we can work something out with whatever is here with us.” 

“How are you just okay with this now?” Brian asked with a shocked gasp. “Not but a few minutes ago, you were insisting this was a series of death throe hallucinations. Now you’re all on the ghost train?” 

“I’m adaptable,” Roger replied. “And I do think it would have ended by now, if we were dying in our beds of a gas leak. So, that plus the proof we’ve got with all the things we’ve found-” 

“And me!” Freddie interrupted. “Still, you know, floating in the fucking sky!” 

“That too,” Roger agreed. “Leads me to have to admit, and I do hate this...but you’re all right. Something is going on. We may as well fix it now so we can work.” 

Brian threw up his hands. “Sure. Why not. Because it won’t be madness to try and record here further.” 

“I’ll go get the ladder,” John sighed, and started for the back door of the house. 

“Ring,” Roger said. “Before you go. Let’s take that off, would probably be for the best.” 

John rolled his eyes, but took the pinky ring off and handed it to Roger, who set it on a side table with the Ouija board. “Brian, that book, could you go get it?” 

Brian nodded, and jogged upstairs. 

“You know,” Freddie said as they waited for the ladder and book. “I did find this gorgeous trunk in my room. Only opened it once to see if anything was in it...” 

Roger nodded. “I’ll go get that. You be alright while I’m gone?” 

Freddie turned to look down at him, and shrugged. “Worst that can happen is I’m tossed to the floor and some of my bones shatter, right?” 

Roger sighed, shook his head, and ran as fast as he could upstairs to Freddie’s room to find the trunk.


	2. 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> On we go! Will Freddie ever get to leave the couch? Is the ladder really a good idea to get him down? 
> 
> And just how much trouble are they in now?

“Too fucking tight!” Brian winced and shouted as they tried to hold the ladder up steadily to the couch. “John, let up off my arm some, or I won’t have one anymore, it’ll fall off.” 

“Then stop your arm shaking so much,” John protested. “Do you want to drop Freddie?” 

“Of course not!” 

Freddie was still on the couch, peering at the wavering ladder, still a decent ways away from him. “I don’t know that this is going to work.”

“Well, we don’t have a lot of other options at the moment,” Roger called up nervously. “Can you try for it?” 

“You know,” Freddie replied. “The couch isn’t so bad. I could record from up here. Could perform if the ghosts agree to float me to the venue, and I think they might.” 

“Please try before my arms give out,” Brian muttered, desperation and tension taking over his tone. 

“Fine, fine,” Freddie hissed, letting out a small shriek as the foot he reached down didn’t even get close to the ladder. 

“I’ve an idea,” John shouted, his arms now shaking as much as Brian’s. “Could you please let our friend down lower, so he can at least reach the ladder? Then you can do whatever you like with the couch.” 

There was barely enough time for Freddie to scramble back fully onto the couch as it dropped a good foot, nearly hitting the top of the ladder in the process.

“Thank you,” John murmured weakly. 

Freddie, shaking, moved as quickly off the couch and down the ladder as he could.

“Wait, let me put this down and you can get off of it, FREDDIE-” Brian’s voice muffled as Freddie promptly climbed down him as an extension of the ladder, ending with his feet safely on the floor, but his arms still wrapped around Brian’s torso. 

“Thank you,” he whispered. 

“You’ve just been given a new fear of heights, haven’t you?” John asked gently.

“Least for the next week,” Freddie confirmed. “Thank god we don’t have to fly anywhere anytime soon.” 

They let the ladder drop to the floor with a crash, and the couch followed after it, as if it was tossed to the floor.

Splinters of it went everywhere, but they ignored it, instead grabbing the trunk and dragging it out of the room with them.

In it, Roger had placed everything else: the board, the ring, and the book.

The door to the main hall area now safely closed behind them, it could all be examined again.

“Oh John,” Freddie sighed as he picked up the ring out of the trunk. “You’ve got better taste than that.” 

“I was trying it out, didn’t know if I was going to make it a staple of my wardrobe,” John said defensively. “And I’m not going to keep it now, obviously.” 

“But you did consider that at one point though?” Freddie asked, distress in his eyes. 

“Don’t look at me like that,” John muttered. 

“We will find you a much nicer ring later,” Freddie said, and set the ring on the floor. 

“Also, a not haunted one,” Brian added. 

“Well, that’s really only part of it,” Freddie said. “More concerning is that I don’t know who would want to wear this, ghost or no ghost...” 

“Was this just sitting on a shelf?” Roger asked, flipping through the thin book. The leather of its cover was cracked, and the illustrations carved into were shaky enough that they had to be done by hand. “Or was it elsewhere?” 

“On the shelf in my room,” Brian said. “Nothing else by it.” 

“I can’t read anything in this,” Roger scoffed. “How did you read any of it?” 

“I don’t know,” Brian said. “Give it here, I’ll read some of it to you.” 

Roger handed the book over, Brian opened it, and his eyes flipped into the back of his head, his mouth hung open while the oddest sound of chanting emitted from it.

“Roger, take the book back,” Freddie said softly. 

Roger reached out, and plucked the book from Brian’s hands.

As soon as he did, Brian was back, as if nothing had happened. “See? I don’t know why it’s easy for me to read, it just is.”

“You can never look in that book again,” Roger said. 

“Why not?” Brian scoffed. “What if we need to read from it to placate whatever’s here?”

“Hopefully we won’t need to do that,” Freddie said. “Give me a moment to get my camera...” 

The nearest staircase was through the main hall, and Freddie charged through it and up the stairs as though an army was after him.

They watched as he came back down, and ducked to avoid a vase as it was thrown at him.

“That was a shame,” Freddie sighed as he slammed the door to the room shut behind him. “Was a nice vase, that one. Now, Rog, hand Brian the book again. I’m going to show him why he can’t have it anymore.” 

Roger gave him a hesitant look, but handed Brian the book, opened to a random page.

The chanting was louder this time, like a thousand voices coming from Brian’s vocal chords all at once. His eyes bulged even as they rolled back, and it all looked almost painful.

Freddie snapped the picture, then gestured rapidly for Roger to take the book away.

Brian shrugged, eyes flipped back. “What?”

“Take this,” Freddie said, and handed him the Polaroid. “Give it a moment, then look at yourself in that, and tell me you should have the book anywhere near you at any time.” 

Brian laughed and shook his head. “It’s a book, Fred-oh.”

The Polaroid was just clear enough to make out the image of Brian, possessed, the book clutched tightly in his hand.

“On second thought, I don’t think I want to handle the book again,” Brian said. 

“No shit,” John muttered. “And you all got on me over the fucking ring.” 

“What about this?” Roger asked as he set the book into the trunk, and held up the board. “No...whatever the thing is, that goes with it. So it shows you what letter and spells things out. Basically useless.” 

He tossed it to the ground, and turned to examine the trunk.

The sound of the ring skidding across the board caught them all off-guard.

“Huh,” John said. “Well, would you look at that.” 

“Should...I shouldn’t touch it, right?” Roger pondered. 

The ring skidded to ‘yes’ on the board.

“Oh. Well, thank you for the prompt answer,” Roger replied.

“Should we be talking to it?” Brian asked. 

“I can do the talking, you lot can finish checking out the trunk, if you wish,” Roger replied, kneeling down near the board. 

Freddie nodded, and leaned into the trunk, then back out of it just as fast. “No. Nope. There are bloodstains in the bottom of it; I did not see those when I first looked at it, barely even opened it, oh my god I almost put my clothing in it.”

John made a face. “Wonder who used to be in it.”

The sound of the ring moving turned them all back to the board.

“S, O, N,” Roger read off as it moved. “Your son? Someone else’s son? You, as someone’s son?” 

“S,O, R, R, Y,” Brian read. “That doesn’t really tell us enough. I’m not trying to be judgmental, honestly. But I mean, what are you sorry for? Did you kill someone’s son? Are you sorry you left bloodstains in the trunk?”

“Brian!” Freddie slapped at his arm. “Of all the things to say.” 

“I’m not trying to be insensitive, but consider that we can’t help and solve this mystery without more information, so,” Brian clapped his hands twice. “Let’s get a move on with some more clues, shall we?” 

“F, U, C,-” Roger started to read off, then snickered. “Oh, now that’s awfully rude. Funny, but rude.” 

“He’s just tired,” Freddie said, and patted Brian on the back. “Ignore him, please, our dear um...I don’t know what to call you, sorry.” 

“F, I, N, D,” John read off as the ring whisked itself around the board. “That isn’t a name.” 

“N, O, W,” he continued as the ring moved again. “Now, now, now, what now, spell something else!” 

The board flipped over, the ring sent flying, and the lid of the trunk slammed shut.

“Are you all so certain now that we should stay?” Brian asked, retrieving the board and ring from where they’d ended up. “Let’s just leave this shit, lock it in one of our rooms, and go.” 

“We’ve already been over this,” John said. “We can’t afford to leave. We have an album that needs finishing, and a perfectly good, if haunted, recording studio in the basement of this house.” 

They all stopped, and even John looked concerned. “Well...that will probably be unpleasant. I’ll admit that. But we can’t just toss away money like this. We have to see this through.”

“It wants us to find something,” Roger said. “So, we find whatever needs finding, and then we can focus on the music again. Easy.”


	3. 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So probably things are fine, right? 
> 
> Perfectly normal, to occasionally stumble upon a mystery while recording at a haunted house. Par the course. 
> 
> But, indeed if the album is to be made, said mystery must be solved. 
> 
> And you can find so much more than you were first looking for, once you start digging.

Four hours later, with the house torn apart, easy was not the descriptor for their search.

“It would be nice to at least know what we’re looking for,” Brian said as he put some of the books back on the nearby shelves in the study. “Not a single hidden passageway when I took any of these off. What a disappointment.” 

“No other weird things,” Roger sighed. “Nothing bloody, no bodies, no nothing. What else should we be looking for?” 

Freddie had ceased looking in the room, and was instead watching the rain as it fell outside. Not heavily, but steadily enough to create a pleasing drumming against the windows.

“What about that?” he asked, and gestured out to the distance. 

The other three joined him, bunching up at the window.

The property wasn’t the largest you might find, but it was big enough, and had a few outlying buildings, quite a few in a state of disrepair.

The shed, not far from the house, however, was still standing.

“Do need to take the ladder back,” John said. “It was sat outside of that though, I didn’t have to go inside it.” 

“Maybe we should all help take the ladder back,” Freddie said. “And take a look inside of that shed.” 

“It’s probably mostly spiders,” John said.

Freddie shuddered. “Was trying not to think about that, John, darling. But thank you for the reminder.”

“Can always count on me,” John smirked. “Sorry.” 

“Hopefully it’ll be worth the trek,” Freddie said. “Shall we?” 

Outside, it was a fight not to slip in the increasingly muddy grass and muck, made worse by shouldering of the ladder between all four of them (that had luckily been easy to retrieve from the main hall, no vases thrown at any of them this time.)

And the shed looked much less promising in person, with the door of it haphazardly shut with a rusty-looking latch.

It creaked miserably as they opened it, the ladder left to rest against the side of the building.

There wasn’t room for all of them to go inside at once, and they looked to each other.

“Oh, so I have to volunteer to go in first because it was my idea,” Freddie scoffed. “Wait, no, I suppose I should, actually. Hell.” 

“I’ll go with you,” Brian said. “Can help rescue any spiders before you crush them.” 

“I wouldn’t crush them,” Freddie said, exasperated. “I don’t like them, but I don’t want them to die. I would run away from them, there is a marked difference.” 

Brian laughed. “Fair enough. Still, if I’m with, I can help capture them so you don’t have to run from them.”

“That works,” Freddie said, and together, they crept into the shed, under John and Roger’s watchful eyes. 

It was musty, and the rain leaking through the roof had brought out a variety of scents to join it. Moss and dirt and-

“Rot,” Freddie frowned. “Like something died in here.” 

Brian turned his face away from a corner of it. “That bird did. Probably a few other things have as well.”

Moving anything in the shed was a disgusting chore, but it had to be done. However, for little result.

Until the back corner.

“Do we have gloves, or something?” Freddie asked. 

“No, why?” 

“Because I’m not picking that up with my bare hands,” Freddie replied, and pointed to the corner. 

Brian peered into the dark, then nodded rapidly, the color draining from his face. “I’ll go get some. There’s bound to be gardening gloves or something in the house.”

Brian bounded away, and Freddie knelt in what little room there was to examine it.

A skull, small, but clearly human.

“Who on earth are you?” he asked softly, knowing full well he wouldn’t get an answer. 

A crack lightening went off somewhere in the sky nearby, and he jumped.

“We should really get back inside,” Roger called. “Not safe to be out here anymore, not when we’re some of the tallest things around.” 

Brian luckily was back even as Roger spoke, moving carefully past them to get back into the shed.

He handed a pair of slightly too small gardening gloves to Freddie, who slipped them on, and grabbed the skull as carefully as he could.

There wasn’t as much smell as he knew could come from a fresh corpse, but even so, there was something very human about the scent that clung to the bone, and it made him woozy.

John and Roger looked just as shocked as he felt as he emerged from the shed, and followed him into the house, the rain pouring now.

Inside, in the dining room, they procured towels for themselves from the nearest bathroom, and one for the skull.

“Too small to be an adult’s,” Roger said bluntly, staring at the skull on the table. “I remember...from some of my courses.”

“Where’s the board?” Freddie asked hoarsely. He’d taken the gloves off and washed his hands five times over, but they still shook whenever he looked at the skull. 

Brian had placed the board and ring on top of the trunk, and he was the one to bring it over to Freddie.

“Is this you?” Freddie asked. 

The ring wiggled, but didn’t move.

“Answer me,” he said. “Please. We need to work, and we can’t do that if you’re going to do things to stop us.”

The ring wiggled again, then zoomed across the board.

“M,E,” Freddie read softly. “I thought as much.” 

“R, E, S, T,” Roger took over reading as the ring moved. “You need us to bury this somewhere?” 

The ring moved to no, then bounced about the board again.

“F, I, N, D,” Roger read. “R, E, S, T, O, F, M, E.” 

“We only found this by chance,” Freddie said. “We’ve searched this house over. There’s nothing else, I’m sorry. Surely, we would have found it by now.” 

“P, L, E, A, S, E,” Brian sighed as he read it. “This is some kid, probably...I can’t say no, can any of you?” 

They all shook their heads.

“Can you at least tell us where we might look?” Freddie asked gently. 

“C,O, N, S, E, R, V, A, T, O, R, Y,” Brian read off as the ring moved, then shuddered, and moved no more.


	4. 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bones, a tunnel, and beginning of a revealing of a secret long kept.

None of them had so much as looked at the conservatory, namely because they had been warned it had been long unused. The windows from the outside and those in the house seemed filthy, enough that seeing inside it was impossible.

But the door to it wasn’t locked, and though the wooden floor was covered in dirt, walking inside of it didn’t seem inherently dangerous.

“You don’t think we’re going to find bones just sitting out, right?” Roger asked, peeking into the pots of decayed plants. “I mean, if you were going to hide that you killed your kid-” 

“We don’t know who killed this person,” Brian interrupted. “And we don’t know who else is here and listening.” 

Roger nodded.

They tried to keep the search relatively clean, dumping pots of soil into bigger pots that had room in them before sifting through the dirt. But there was nothing. No shards of bone, no fragments of any sign that a body had been hidden in any of the sadly wilted and rotting plants.

“We need another clue,” Freddie sighed, leaning back on his heels, knelt near one of the bigger pots. “There’s something we’re missing.” 

John stamped his foot onto the wooden flooring. “What about that?”

“What about what?” Brian asked. “You, stamping your feet?” 

“Underneath,” John replied. “It doesn’t sound hollow enough to have any basement space under it, which means there’s dirt and some sort of foundation underneath this instead.” 

“We’ll need tools,” Roger sighed, and they spread out to see what the house held. 

They returned, about fifteen minutes later: Freddie, with a hammer he’d found when he ran back out to the shed, moving quickly to avoid getting too soaked again in the rain; Roger, with a large cleaver he’d found in the kitchen; Brian, with a few tools from one of the fireplaces; and John, with a crowbar.

“And you found that where?” Roger asked John.

“In a room that looked like it used to be a nursery,” he replied. “Trying not to think about the implications of that.” 

“Fair enough,” Roger agreed. “So, we’re just...going to start yanking up the flooring?” 

Freddie smashed the claw end of the hammer into the wooden floor, and nodded. “What other way is there to go about it?”

The rest of the night was filled with the sound of them working at the flooring, then sifting through the dirt packed beneath it.

“I’m no expert,” John said, wiping sweat from his brow. “But this isn’t how flooring is meant to be done, I don’t think.” 

“It’s weird,” Roger agreed. “No support for it, no other foundation. No wonder walking on it felt so odd.” 

“Why would you even want it done like this?” Freddie asked to no one in particular. “What a waste of money, to-” 

He swallowed. “Do we still have those gloves?”

It was Brian’s turn to wear them, and he rushed over as carefully as he could.

“There,” Freddie directed, and sure enough, a small human-looking bone came out of the dirt. 

Brian shivered. “I’ll go put it with the skull. Don’t like touching it for long. Sorry, to...you. If you’re listening. It isn’t you, I’m just not used to ah...disinterment, like this.”

The search focused on that area from then on, even after they had to seek out torches and candles to set up around the room.

And slowly, piece by piece, more emerged.

The skeleton covered most of the table, some of the bones broken and fragmented.

“Is this all of you?” Freddie asked the board, as they stood in front of it. It rested yet on the open end of the table, the ring sat on it. 

“Yes,” Roger breathed, as the ring skittered. “Oh thank god.” 

“We..” Freddie hesitated. “I admit, I don’t know what the best thing is to do now. We don’t even know who used to own this place, or how long you’ve been here. Do we call the police? The company that rented the house out to us? Both?” 

“S, H, O, W, Y, O, U,” Roger spelled out as the ring moved swiftly from letter to letter. “You can show us what to do next? You mean by spelling it out, right?”

“No,” John read as the ring moved faster this time to the word, almost angrily. “L, I, B, R, A, R, Y.” 

“Oh god,” Brian muttered. “The book. I’m not touching it, I don’t care what they ask of us.”

Freddie quietly picked up the board, the ring in hand, and nodded to Roger. “Get the book just in case. If we need it, we’ll find some other way to decipher it other than having Brian touch it.” 

“Thank you,” Brian sighed. “Should we...leave the bones here?” 

“They aren’t likely to get up and leave,” John said, and for a moment, the tension of the whole situation broke enough to let them laugh. 

“You make a good point,” Brian chuckled. “Very well. Sooner this is over, the sooner we can get back to what we’re meant to be doing.” 

“I don’t know,” Roger said as he grabbed the book from the nearby trunk. “I think we could have a second career with this.” 

“Let us solve your old murder mysteries, also pay us and we’ll play you something?” John suggested. 

“Might need to be a bit catchier, but essentially that, yeah,” Roger replied.

The atmosphere was wonderfully lighter as they made their way through the main hall, upstairs, to the library. 

It was different from the study only in that it was bigger, and had a marvelous fire place in it as well. The shelves were dusty, but at one time it was easy to believe that all the books on them had been well-loved. 

However, nothing about it looked particularly sinister or concerning. 

“I know you’re probably sick of giving us hints,” Freddie smiled. “And maybe you think we’re dense.” 

“It really depends on the day and the topic,” Roger interjected.

Freddie nodded. “We’re sharp otherwise, I swear. But we do need you to tell us what we ought to be looking for here.” 

He set the board and ring down on a coffee table in the center of the library, surrounded by two overstuffed couches and an armchair that looked ready to fall apart. 

“F, I, R, E, P, L, A, C, E,” he read out as the ring moved. “Something to find in the fireplace.” 

“No,” John read, watching the ring move. “Then what? It’s cold, but not cold enough to start a fire up.” 

The ring moved back to no, again and again, and again, seemingly in frustration. 

“C, R, A, W, L,” Roger read when it finally moved back to the letters. “I’m sorry, but if that means what I think...” 

He sighed, and looked to his clothes, then to everyone else’s, all covered in dirt and wrinkled from the rain. “Well. They’re ruined already, I suppose.” 

“We can’t go up a fireplace,” Brian said. 

John was already over to the fireplace, fiddling about with everything on the mantel. When that did nothing, he knelt down into it, fussing about at the corners of it until there was a loud ‘click.’ 

With that, the back of the fireplace fell open, and a tunnel was exposed. 

“What,” Brian breathed softly. “Will we even fit?” 

“We’ve come this far,” John replied. “May as well try.” 

It was a tight fit, made worse for Freddie and Roger, trying to hang onto the board and ring, and the book, while they crawled. 

“Can I just say,” Brian said, his voice echoing against the dark metal sides of the tunnel. “We’re never blindly renting a place to record again. How has no other band found any of this yet?”

“Thing of it is,” John said. “It was expensive for us to rent this place, but for a more established band? Would be pennies. And the company couldn’t tell me why all the bands prior had never finished out their recordings here; I just figured they got bored of it, or needed some equipment that this place doesn’t have-” 

“Oh my god,” Brian interrupted. “But it was probably this, them being haunted the whole damned time.” 

“Starting to think that, yeah,” John said. “But hey, look at it this way. If we solve this, not only can we probably come back and record here for free after the fact-” 

“Least they could do for us,” Roger scoffed. 

“Right,” John agreed, and continued. “But then we don’t have to worry about being chased out of here while trying to finish the record. And we’re helping whoever it is who died. Surely that’s got to count for something, doesn’t it?” 

“It does,” Brian said. “I really want to get back to the actual work we came here to do, is all.” 

“So do we all,” Freddie said. “Fucking hell, how long is this thing?” 

“Not so long,” John muttered as he slipped out of the end of it, into a dark, brick room. “Did anyone grab any of the torches?” 

“No,” Brian sighed as he joined him. “We put the candles out, but didn’t think to grab the torches.” 

“That sounds about right,” John chuckled. “I’ve got a lighter, do you all have-” 

Three hands immediately whipped lighters out of their pockets, even as Roger and Freddie finished slipping out of the tunnel and into the room. 

“Good,” John continued. “One at a time though, otherwise they’ll all be used up at once, and then we’ll be shit out of luck.” 

“Don’t relish the idea of that,” Roger winced. “Down here, in the dark. No idea of how to get back up and out.” 

Brian gently placed a hand on Roger’s shoulder. “Rog.” 

“Yeah?” 

“Please stop talking about that, how we don’t know if or how we’ll get out of here,” Brian continued. “I...really, really, really, cannot think about that right now.” 

“I don’t like thinking of it either,” Roger said. “Agreed. No more mention of possibly being trapped here.” 

John led the way out of the room. There was no door, just openings, that led into similar empty and round rooms, with dirt floors. The air was thick, and combined with the fear of no escape, it would have made anyone claustrophobic. 

Even so, they kept calm. Hands reached out for each other as needed, to ensure no one got left behind or lost. The sound of each other’s breathing reassurance that, if nothing else, at least none of them were alone. 

As they entered the next new room, this one bigger than all the others, it became clear that they had never been alone in the house at all. 

“That is...a lot of skeletons,” Roger muttered. He had been holding Brian’s hand down the latest hall, but he squeezed it tightly now. 

In front of them, at the head of the room, was a dais, with a lectern, perfectly sized for the book in Roger’s other hand. 

And all around the room, serving as a macabre trim, were skeletons in open coffins leaned against the walls. 


	5. 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The boys are, as the saying goes, in the shit now. 
> 
> Namely, the shit of stopping a lot of terrible things, including the end of the world. 
> 
> But if anyone can do it, it’s our lads.
> 
> Right?

“It’s only people,” Freddie said, as much to himself as to his bandmates. “What’s left of them. That’s fine.” 

“I don’t know what we’ve stumbled upon,” Brian said. “But maybe this is the time to go and get someone to help us with it.” 

“We don’t even know how to get out of here,” Roger said, dropping Brian’s hand and walking carefully up to the lectern, as if the skeletons might jump up at him. “The time for help was...” 

None of them wanted to say it out loud, but they all knew what Roger was going to say. The time for help had been a good time ago now, when they’d first found the skull, or when they’d managed to rescue Freddie from the floating couch. 

Now, they were on their own, no matter what else might happen. 

“What are you doing?” Freddie asked Roger sharply, watching him as he set the book on the lectern. 

“What? It goes there,” Roger said matter-of-factly. “It needs to go there. I’d be in trouble if I didn’t put it there.” 

His face twisted into a worried, strange look. “With who though? It isn’t my book. He doesn’t know I took it.” 

“Who are you talking about?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know,” Roger replied, and dropped to the floor. 

Freddie set the board and ring on the floor of the room, and ran to Roger. 

“He’s breathing,” he murmured. “I don’t think he hit his head horribly hard. It didn’t sound like it.” 

“Even so,” Brian gulped. “We need to see if we can’t crawl back out of that tunnel. We are in over our heads.” 

The sound of the ring skating over the board echoed, and John grabbed it, carefully bringing it over to Freddie and Roger, who Freddie had pulled into his lap as he sat on the cold stone of the dais. 

Brian joined them, but his eyes returned to the darkness of the hallway they’d just come out of it. It was the only way out of the room, no other new hallways came off of it. 

John flicked his lighter on again, and they stared at the board. 

“R, E, A, D,” John read off the board. “No. We aren’t having Brian read that book. Whatever you need us to do, it can’t involve that.” 

“Maybe I could though,” Brian considered. His eyes had glazed over, and he was already moving to the lectern, past Freddie and Roger. 

“What are you doing?” Freddie spat. “Stop that! This isn’t the time for jokes; you get back here and help me with Roger.” 

“He’s going to be fine,” Brian said with a smile. “We all will be, after.” 

“After what?” John asked, just as his lighter flickered out. 

The couldn’t see in the dark, but the sound of chanting, painfully loud as it echoed around the room, let them know he had opened and was reading from the book. 

“Stop him,” Freddie instructed John. “I’ll keep Roger covered, if you can get that book away from him.” 

“But-” 

“Have you not always said that just once, you might like to give Brian a slap out of frustration with him?” 

“I have, but-” 

“This is the only time I will ever say that we should come to blows,” Freddie interrupted again. “Knock him out of whatever the fuck is happening to him, and get that book closed!” 

There was no way to avoid toppling Brian into the nearest skeletons, and John shuddered as he tackled him away from the lectern and heard the bones clattering around them. 

“Let me go,” the voice that came from Brian’s mouth wasn’t his. It was deeper, and angry. “You have no idea what you’re doing. My son didn’t either.” 

A light appeared at the opening of the hall, and John, Brian, and Freddie turned to look to it. 

A small boy, maybe six years old, smiled at them. He held a candle in his hand, which was enough light to see that he couldn’t possibly be alive. 

“Thank you for the help,” he said kindly. “We don’t need to use the board anymore. My daddy doesn’t like those anyway.” 

“I don’t,” the voice from Brian said, and it used Brian’s body to push John away. 

Brian, or rather, whatever was inhabiting him, stood and went to the boy, scooping him up in a hug. “You’ve done so much better this time. I’m sorry I had to punish you, for your first try.” 

“It’s okay,” the boy grinned, and were it not for the rest of the situation, it might have been heart-warming. “I needed to learn how to do better. And you told me-” 

“Death can teach us so much,” the voice coming from Brian and the boy said together. 

“You killed your son?” Freddie asked, disgusted. In his lap, Roger was trying to stir. 

“He had to!” the boy stressed. “I was supposed to bring him four people, and I found them, on the road. It was all cold, and they were scared, and I brought them here so they could be safe. We gave them food and they got cocoa and everything!” 

“But what happened after that?” the voice asked sternly, adjusting so the boy rested on his hip. 

“I made a mistake,” the boy said. “I had to get them down into the tunnel, and I didn’t know how to do that. So I told them I’d lost a toy down here, but they wouldn’t go!” 

The boy kicked a leg out in frustration. “So, I made them go. I got one of my daddy’s helpers to hit them all with a crowbar, but he hit them too hard. They wouldn’t wake up when we pushed them down here, and then we couldn’t use them any more.” 

The boy wiggled to get down, and walked over to Roger as soon as his feet touched the dirt. “That’s why it’s really good your friend is waking up. Hello! We need you to be awake for this, please!” 

“Who the fuck are you?” Roger asked feebly. 

“This is the child we thought we were helping,” Freddie said sharply. “But it was all a trick, wasn’t it?” 

The boy clapped his hands, the candle in his ghostly hands effected by nothing he did. “It was! I knew my daddy had hid bits of me all over, and people like to help and find things! And you all were so nice after I didn’t throw you against the wall with the couch like I wanted to, so I knew you would do anything I asked.” 

“What now?” Freddie scoffed, an arm around John as John crawled back over to him. 

“Now,” the little boy said, walking past them to the lectern. “We finish the book! And when we do that, everybody gets to start over!” 

“What does that mean?” Roger asked. 

“Means you guys, and everybody else in the whole wide world, get to learn like I did!” the boy crowed triumphantly. “Death taught me that I have to be careful, and smart, so I can help my daddy with things like this. He wants the whole world to learn from death, so we can do better and not hurt each other.” 

His little face fell a bit. “Like my brother Nigel, in the war. He didn’t get to come home, and we tried to ask him to come home, but he wouldn’t. But now we can make him! I’ll get to see him again, and we’ll play all day, and he won’t go anywhere, right Daddy?” 

The thing in Brian made him nod. “And maybe boys like these will learn you shouldn’t be so trusting.” 

“Maybe you shouldn’t kill your children for being roped into and mucking up cult shit,” Freddie spat. 

“Cult?” the thing in Brian made him frown. “We are not a cult. We’re truth; a new chance for everyone. When our first attempt failed, my friends saw the reality of it all. They chose to end their lives, knowing that their shared energy could bring me back. To my boy, my Linden. To make this right, and let the world burn, so that it can learn.” 

“I...” Freddie paused, then shook his head in frustration. “I’m just a singer. I’m supposed to be recording an album right now.” 

“You can still do that,” the voice said, and it hurt to hear something so taunting coming from Brian of all people. “After, when things are new again.” 

“No,” Freddie said, and stood slowly, helping John and Roger up with him. “I don’t want to do that. We’ve put hard work in already, and I’m not letting that go to waste. More importantly, we have friends and family out there-” 

“And you can’t fucking touch them,” Roger interrupted wearily. 

Freddie nodded. “Now, what we really need is our friend back, so you’ll need to go.” 

“You can’t make me go,” the voice laughed. 

But Linden, still at the lectern, looked hurt. “Maybe they could have him back. So they aren’t scared when they die.” 

“Dying isn’t scary,” the voice said. “We’ve been over this, how many times-” 

“It was scary for me!” Linden protested. “It really hurt! And it took you so long to make me stop breathing.” 

Tears appeared in Linden’s eyes. “You said it wouldn’t take that long. You said because you had big hands and I had a little neck, it would be fast. And you said I’d see Mummy again, and I didn’t, and I keep calling for her and she never shows up. And neither does Nigel. But the only people around here were all your helpers, and they kept asking what was taking me so long, and why hadn’t I found anyone else so you could finish what you’d started.” 

The tears bubbled over, and Freddie resisted the urge to jump as Linden walked over to him, and wrapped his cold arms around his leg. “And all I wanted was you and Mummy and Nigel, or someone to play with me at least!” 

Linden looked up to Freddie, tears streaming down his face. “I’m sorry. You were nice to me, and I tricked you. I bet you would have played with me.” 

His heart broke, and from the sad sighs from Roger and John, their hearts did too. “We would have, Linden. Or we would have tried to help you find your mum, and your brother.” 

Linden hugged his leg tightly. “After, will you still play with me? Even though this was my fault?” 

“We will,” John replied softly. “Can’t let you hang around this arsehole for eternity.” 

Linden giggled at that, one hand clapped over his mouth. “You can’t say that!” 

“We can,” Roger chuckled. “We’re grown ups, so we get to say those nasty words, about nasty people, like your dad. He tricked you, did you know that?” 

Linden looked to his father, still inhabiting Brian, and nodded slowly. “But I didn’t before.” 

“And that’s okay,” Roger said. “You’re only little, so you wouldn’t know. Dads are supposed to help you, make sure those things don’t happen to you. And they aren’t supposed to hurt you, or make you do things like this for them.” 

Linden pressed his face against Freddie’s leg, and looked utterly despondent. 

“You already know that though, don’t you?” Freddie said gently. 

Linden nodded. 

“If you help us get our friend back, and stop your dad, then I think your mum and Nigel would be able to find you,” John said. 

Linden sniffled, and nodded again, confidently. 

“This is adorable,” the thing that was Linden’s father, or some version of him, smirked. “But useless. You intend to stop the necessary end of the world with a child? Instead of wasting your time, why don’t you use it well, and ask any final questions you might have for me, before I finally finish this world.” 

“Why Brian?” Roger asked. “Why not any of us, instead of him, to possess?” 

“As simple as a want,” the thing replied. “He found the book, but couldn’t read it. He was curious, and frustrated he couldn’t identify the language in it. He wanted to be able to read it. I latched onto that want, and then...” 

It grinned. “He could read it! Magical, isn’t it?” 

“You took advantage of him,” Freddie growled. “His being curious, wanting to learn, wasn’t consent for you to take over him.” 

“And yet, here I am,” the thing said happily. “Now, keep Linden quiet for me. He’s done very well, but I don’t need him for this bit.” 

They shuffled away from the dais to rest on the dirt floor, watching as the thing inside Brian moved him back to the lectern. 

“Now, where was I?” it said. “Yes, here-” 

Before it could speak again, John ran and tackled it down again, holding Brian down, even as the thing made him fight back. 

Roger raced over and grabbed the book, tossing it to Freddie, who knelt and handed it to Linden. 

“You know how to get out of here, and even if you didn’t, I think you can get out no matter what with that nifty ability to move between the walls,” Freddie said. “Take it and run.” 

Linden nodded, and stopped only once to look back at them before going off down the hall. His little feet made no sound in the dirt as he ran. 

“Your book is gone,” Freddie said, helping John away from Brian without taking anymore knocks to the face. “So now what? You can’t finish your stupid task, and we still need our friend back.” 

“Rational thing would be to give up, leave Brian, and go before the shame really sets in,” John said. 

Roger nodded. “God, I can feel the second-hand embarrassment already. You should just go.” 

The thing in Brian turned his head to the hall, then turned back, and pounced on Freddie. 

He kicked and fought, but Brian’s hands were tight around his throat. He thought of Linden in that moment. What a horrible death for such a young child, what terrible fear to have as one’s last moments. 

He could barely choke out any words. “Brian, you must be able to hear me.” 

Brian’s eyes were still rolled back into his head, teeth gritted, as he squeezed at Freddie’s neck. 

“You’ll have to sing everything on the next album if you keep this up,” he tried again, gasping for breath in between the words. “I know you don’t want to do that.” 

There was a flicker. Brian’s hands loosened just a touch. 

“I don’t blame you for this,” Freddie said. “Not even this, right now. You were tricked, we all were. Like Linden. All he wanted was to help his father. All you wanted was to try and read a book written in something you’d never seen before. There’s no need to punish helpfulness, or curiosity.” 

Brian’s eyes rolled back down, and his mouth softened. 

“I don’t know how else we can get you back except for you to fight your way back,” Freddie admitted. “Please come back. I won’t tour with some quasi-demonic previously human entity from beyond time, I have my limits.” 

Brian grinned, and laughed, and his hands dropped from Freddie’s throat. Then, pure terror replaced his joy, and he scrabbled away off of Freddie. 

The thing that had been in him was barely visible, a glimmering white ball of light, bumping around the room. 

“Don’t let him back in,” Freddie said, crawling over to Brian. “It’s okay, but you can’t let him back in.” 

“I was trying to kill you,” Brian whispered. “He wanted me to kill you.” 

“I know,” Freddie said. “But you didn’t, and it’s fine. I’m fine.” 

“It isn’t fine at all!” Brian sobbed, breaking down into tears. “Oh my god, Freddie-” 

He interrupted Brian with a fierce hug, and kept an eye as the light bounced around the room, occasionally veering towards one of them, making them duck away. 

“I got it!” Linden’s voice echoed down the hall. He had returned, without the book, but with a small urn in his hand. “I had to find it, I’m sorry it took so long!” 

“What are you doing?” Roger asked him. 

“Making Daddy go away,” Linden said simply, as if they were discussing the weather. “Just like he did with Mummy. I know that’s why I can’t find her.” 

Linden muttered a few phrases, in a language that didn’t come close to familiar to any they had heard before, then threw the urn to the ground. The ashes in it scattered, and as they did, the light scattered away too. 

Linden smiled nervously. “I never did that before. Only watched Daddy do it. But it feels like it did when he did it to Mummy. All empty.” 

He wasn’t wrong. The room felt empty, except for them, and Linden. The dark was still difficult to see in, but the sense of foreboding that had filled it previously was gone. 

“You’re sure he’s gone?” Brian asked softly, turning in Freddie’s arms to face Linden, wiping away his tears. 

Linden nodded happily. “He’s gone.” 

Linden looked past them, and shouted. “Mummy! You were right, she found me!” 

John smiled. “Told you. I bet she wants you to go with her, doesn’t she?” 

Linden nodded. “And Nigel’s there!” 

He started towards the other end of the room, then stopped. “But you all can’t stay in here. You’ve got to get out.” 

“Is there a way out other than the tunnel, Linden?” Freddie asked. 

“It’s lots of walking, but there is,” Linden replied. “I’ll be right back, Mummy! I’m going to let my new friends out.” 

Freddie helped Brian to his feet, and helped him so they could keep up with Linden as he led the four them back out down the hall, and then another, and then-

“Now, you have to do this in the right order,” Linden instructed seriously. “You hit this brick, then this one, then this one, and-” 

A new hallway appeared as what had previously been just a wall split open. “There’s a door at the end, and it’ll take you outside to a ladder you can climb up, but then you’ll still have to walk back to the house.” 

Linden sighed. “It’s only past the shed, but I’m sorry you have to go all that way.” 

“That’s okay,” Freddie said. “Thank you for the help, Linden. You’re a good little lad, and very smart and helpful.” 

“Thank you,” Linden said, and he looked absolutely tickled. “Are you okay going the rest of the way alone?” 

“We’ve got each other,” Roger said, and helped Freddie shoulder an exhausted, stumbling Brian. “We’ll be okay. You go see your mum, and give her our love, will you?” 

Linden nodded, and they turned to watch as he trotted back down the hall, disappearing bit by bit the further away he got, until he was gone completely. 


	6. 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> An end, an escape, and finally, the recording of the album, now that the lads can focus on what they actually rented the house for!

The walk was long, and getting Brian up the ladder was possibly one of the more difficult things they had ever done. 

But outside, the sun was rising. 

“I think we deserve a day off,” Roger said, wincing as he adjusted how he was helping hold Brian up. 

“Agreed,” John said. “If nothing else, someone here needs a recovery day, at minimum.” 

“I’m so sorry,” Brian murmured. He’d been saying mostly that for the entire trip back to the house. 

“Brian, it’s really okay,” Freddie reassured him. “You don’t need to feel responsible for any of this. None of it was your fault, or any of our faults. Just focus on staying upright for me.” 

Brian shook his head, but stayed quiet until they made it inside. 

There, it was not dissimilar to recovering from an overly boisterous night out. They took turns bathing and changing into clean clothes, a first aid kit was brought out for the bumps and scrapes. 

The only thing different, was that they did not immediately retire to their own beds after things were all cleaned up. 

“See?” Brian said softly. “That was his father’s ring.” 

The picture of Linden’s father was on the mantle of the fireplace in the library (with the secret panel now closed.) In it, sure enough, the pinky ring was just visible on his hand. 

“The book was his too,” Brian continued. “And he told me, when he was...” 

He shuddered. “With me. That Linden made the board himself, with help from Nigel, before Nigel shipped out. He just wanted to be included, so badly.” 

They found the records of Nigel’s military service, and death, in the second World War, in the library as well. 

“I can’t judge her,” Brian said as they found a picture of Linden and Nigel’s mother. “I don’t know how my mum would react, if I died away in a battle.” 

“She must have trusted her husband more than she should have,” John said. “To kill yourself, and leave a little one with that monster.” 

“I don’t think she was thinking clearly,” Brian said. “Could any of us say that we would, in that situation?” 

John sighed, and joined the others in shaking their heads. “No. I can’t say that for sure.” 

“I doubt she meant for something so terrible to happen to her remaining son,” Freddie said. “Otherwise I’m sure she would have stayed around, for his sake.” 

“I’m just glad she was able to reach out to get him now,” Roger said. “Whatever his father did, that little ritual...must have kept her from manifesting like Linden.” 

“Can only guess that that’s so,” Freddie sighed. “Now, I am exhausted, and hungry, and I could use a drink.” 

It took a bit of time to carefully move Linden’s bones so the table could be used, and dinner was sparse with what little was in the fridge, but at least there was wine. 

“A toast,” Roger said. “To surviving...all of that. Whatever the fuck you might want to call it. I certainly don’t know.” 

“Me neither,” John said. “We can’t tell anyone about it, that’s for sure.” 

“There’s skeletons down there still though,” Brian said. “And the book...well, who knows where Linden put that. What if someone finds it? Or uses the trunk?” 

“Is there something mystical going on with the trunk that he told you about?” Freddie asked. 

“No, but it’s got old bloodstains in it,” Brian said. “From when Linden’s body was briefly kept in it. Don’t really think it should be used again.” 

“We’ll have to think of something to do with it,” Freddie said. “For now, I agree with Roger’s toast. To surviving!” 

\---

The next day, and the rest of their days there, were dedicated completely to the album (barring the morning they found an ax in the shed, and used it to chop up the trunk as best they could, leaving the pieces of it in the wood pile near the shed, and the evening they took to bury Linden’s bones out in the yard.) 

“I do think we need to have something on here,” Freddie said during one of their last days. “To commemorate what happened. Even if only we’ll know that’s what it’s about.” 

“There’s a bit of it in Flick Of The Wrist,” Roger said. “I mean, not all about Linden’s father, mostly management, but I’d say some of it applies to him too. Quite literally, since he wanted us and everyone else dead, with what I figure would have been a flick of his wrist.” 

“Maybe not a full song,” Freddie said. “Little bits and pieces instead, like that. Sections of lyrics that are about it, as well as everything else we’ve put in them.” 

They all nodded. 

“I like that,” John said. “As it is, do you know how weird it’s going to be not telling the rental company about all this?” 

“So much for getting free recording time in exchange for doing their ghost-hunting,” Roger scoffed. 

“We’re one of the first bands in years to finish out a recording here,” John said. “That alone might be enough to at least invite us back with a discount, since we didn’t break our rental contract, like all the bands before us.” 

“That’s something,” Brian smiled. “As long as I don’t get possessed again, if we come back.” 

“Wasn’t a fun vacation from your body?” Roger teased gently. 

“No,” Brian said with a shake of his head. “Kind of thought something like that would be, actually. But no. Just very cold, and...untethered. I don’t ever want to feel that again.” 

“Well, you’re stuck here in your body, in the world, with all of us again,” Roger said. “So don’t fret about it.” 

“I won’t,” Brian said. “But I will feel a little bit better when we’re gone from here, all the same.” 

A few days later, they were, and things finally truly felt back to normal. 

But every time someone put on Sheer Heart Attack around them, and let the record play through, glances were shared, and they all couldn’t help but think back to what had happened, and to the secret of the house that no one but them would ever know. 


End file.
